Whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy -- meditate on these things.

The buses were great - we just used the "circulator" buses which have a schedule, but come relatively often, so you don't really need the schedule. The first or second one we were one had its air conditioner broken, and all of the windows were shut, so it was pretty stuffy and hot, and we wondered whether if this was going to be a good method of transportation, but every other bus we took was great, and was an easy way to get around. We even went to the grocery store that was a ways out of the downtown area, and that worked out well.

Posted by
jondaley
on June 17, 2016, 2:56 pm

Erica took us to the "Top of the World", the top floor of the World Trade Center, which is associated by name to other Trade Centers around the world, and had a 9/11 memorial erected on the ten year anniversary of 9/11/2001 in memory of the residents of New Jersey who were killed in the World Trade Center in New York City.

We purchased tickets and got into the elevators - the reception lady had to get into each elevator to punch in a code (which consisted of hitting floor buttons in a certain combination and order, kind of cool). And we went up. The families were split apart just due to where people were standing, so I was in the first elevator with some of my kids, and others were in the second.

We got to the top, and I was waiting for the second elevator to arrive and thinking it was taking a while when the gift shop cashier came over to tell us that there was a fire alarm going off and the elevators would be closed for a while.

My first thought was that my family was in the other elevator and stuck on some floor. And then I thought maybe it was our kids who triggered the alarm by pushing a button in the elevator... And she didn't know the answer to that, but then I got a phone call saying they had been evacuated. We got to watch the fire trucks arrive from 27 floors up, and they made a sweep through the building, and then left, but something didn't reset properly, and they had to be called back, and eventually, they said that the elevators would be closed for an indeterminate period of time, and perhaps we would like to walk down the stairs.

So, we choose to do that, and walked down the ~500 steps to the bottom.

The views were nice from the top, but it was distracting to have everything else going on at the same time.

In the end, we found out the alarm was triggered on a floor in the middle of the building, and was some sort of wiring problem, and not related to our kids. :)

Posted by
jondaley
on June 17, 2016, 3:05 pm

Always good when that kind of adventure is "not related to our kids!" :-)